I Ate Vegan For a Week, and Here's Why Eating Plant-Based Is Not For Me

Friday: Day 1

Meal 1: GoMacro High Protein MACROBAR

Meal 2: Love Grown Chocolate Power O’s cereal sprinkeld with vanilla protein (my fave is Tropeaka) and cashew milk

Meal 3: Banza chickpea pasta with vegan sausage, roasted veggies, and a delicious avocado cream sauce (just purée avocado with almond milk, salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, and garlic)

Saturday: Day 2

Meal 1: Vanilla and banana protein shake

Meal 2: Cereal with protein powder, bananas, blueberries, and cashew milk

Meal 3: Pasta with vegan sausage, spinach, mushrooms, and a red sauce

Snack: Nutiva coconut treat

Sunday: Day 3

Meal 1: No Cow Protein Bar

Meal 2: Toast with lots and lots of smashed avocado to make up for the lack of eggs

Meal 3: You guessed it . . . pasta with vegan sausage, veggies, and more avocado cream sauce

Monday: Day 4

Meal 1: Coconut chia overnight oats with berries

Meal 2: Protein bar and cereal

Meal 3: Tempeh stir fry with coconut aminos, sesame oil, broccoli, edamame, carrots, peas, and corn

Tuesday: Day 5

Meal 1: Square Organics Protein Bar

Meal 2: Pinch of Yum Avocado Kale Caesar Salad and sweet potato fries

Meal 3: Leftovers from tempeh stir fry

Meal 4: “Unintentional” bite of a hamburger (whoops)

Wednesday: Day 6

Meal 1: Protein bar

Meal 2: Acai bowl

Meal 3: Banza pasta with seitan, veggies, and red sauce

Thursday: Day 7

Meal 1: Chocolate protein shake

Meal 2: Sweet potato toast two ways, one with almond butter and bananas, another with smashed avocado and tofu scramble

Meal 3: Zucchini noodles with roasted tomatoes, pesto, and vegan sausage

Meal 4: Nada Moo dairy-free ice cream (what dreams are made of!)

Friday: Day 8

(Did an extra day to make up for hamburger bite)

Meal 1: Chocolate oatmeal with bananas and almond butter

Meal 2: Vegan meatballs and sweet potato fries

Meal 3: Leftovers from zoodles last night

Final Thoughts on 8 Days of Vegan Eating

What’s the conclusion after eating plant-based for just over a week? Well, even though I didn’t stick through it all, I learned so much from it. The food was delicious but not what I was used to eating and digesting. It was very hard to avoid meat substitutes if I wanted to make sure to get enough protein, and I did not really enjoy it. The fake meat not only had a weird smell to it but also an odd texture that was hard to get past.

Eating plant-based for me meant eating a lot more carbs, especially gluten, which my body didn’t like. Even though the food tasted fine, I never felt truly satisfied after a meal. Maybe my body just needed more than a week to adjust to such a big change, but I honestly love chicken and eggs too much to go cold turkey (no pun intended). My energy felt fine throughout the week but sometimes felt more slowed down because the meals were so dense in carbs.

At the end of the day, this week-long experiment taught me a great deal. I was able to avoid a lot of processed, unhealthy foods through the course of the experiment and also discovered that there are many dairy-free options available. There’s vegan cheese, vegan ice cream, vegan (almost) everything! Maybe I’ll try this out again in the future without slipping. More likely, I’ll incorporate more plant-based meals into my diet, avoid dairy, and decrease my consumption of red meat.